Question

There is a liquid mixture of water, H2O (1.0 g/mL), and pentane C5H12 (0.626 g/mL). What method would be best to separate these substances?

A.
decanting
B.
filtration
C.
chromatography
D.
distillation

Answer 1

Pentane is less dense than water, and is also insoluble in water. Also pentane has a lower boiling point that water. That said, pentane would form a layer on top of the water. For ease, but not necessarily perfect results, decanting would work. The perfect separation would be distillation due to the difference in boiling points which would allow a much better yield than decanting.